Nice week in the world of sales blogs. Keep up the good work!
10. Paul McCord, "Are You BS'ing Yourself with Your 'Prospecting' Activity?"
Takeaways: Not all sales activity is prospecting. We often have the idea that all the information gathering, schedule organizing, and idea generating activites we engage in can be considering prospecting. Actually, prospecting only occurs when we are actually engaged in conversation with a customer. We are prospecting when we are on the phone or in a meeting, not when we are simply preparing to be. Productive salespeople will spend less time "preparing" and more time actually prospecting.
9. Scott Ginsberg, "The Art of Taking It Personally"
Takeaways: People often say that you shouldn't take it personally when you are insulted in business or in life. In actuality, you should. Taking feedback personally encourages you to actually care, to make thoughtful choices, and to take responsibility for your behavior. If you don't take it personally, you have to have a sense of detachment from your work. And that isn't good for you or the people with whom you have relationships.
8. Charles Green, "The Limits of Rational Trust:Part 1"
Takeaways: It's a possible to be trustworthy situationally. Some businesses are only trustworthy as long as it's a strategic move. When the possibility of future interaction with any given customer diminishes, there is no longer a need to be trustworthy for that business. Dealing with businesses that have a limited snese of trustworthiness is dangerous. It is always better to have a long run view of trust.
7. Cameron Chapman, "5 Social Media Mistakes That Make You Look Like an Amateur and Cost You Sales"
Takeaways: Social media is as necessary for business today as a website was 5 years ago. However, many businesses new to social media may make costly mistakes that drive customers away. Posting promotional updates too often and not responding to negative comments, for example, can cause customers to ignore you or even crusade against you.
6. Sharon Drew Morgen, "Are Sales People Going the Way of Telemarketers?"
Takeaways: With the ubiquity of information available for buyers, salespeople are becoming less and less needed. The number of salespeople in the work for is supposed to dwindle massively in the coming decade. What is a salesperson to do? Become more than a salesperson. Become a buying consultant, an advisor through the sales process and beyond rather than just someone pushing a product or service transactionally.
5. Jonathan Farrington, "Customers Not Complaining? Be Very Worried"
Takeaways: If customers aren't complaining, it is not necessarily a sign that business is good. Most customers won't complain but will merely express their dissatisfaction by taking their business elsewhere. A conscientious business person will proactively seek out criticism from customers. That is the only way you can know the changes you need to make to keep your customers loyal.
4. Mark McGuiness, "How the Buddah Solved His Marketing Problems"
Takeaways: Siddhartha Gautama is perhaps one of the greatest salespeople of all time. He spread his ideas beautifully by narrowing his audience, lacing his truth with relevance, and packaging his ideas in a way that was easy digest.
3. Geoffrey James, "Sales Reps Are More Important Than CEOs"
Takeaways: All functions of a business should exist to support the sales team. Products should be engineered so that they are easier to be sold. Products should be manufactured so that the quality keeps a customer buying. Advertising should be created that makes selling more seamless. Everything in a business exists for the sale. The salespeople, then, are the most delicate and instrumental aspect of any business, and they should be treated as such.
2. Anthony Iannarino, "How to Be a Superhero in Sales"
Takeaways: Salespeople are superheros. A salesperson has superpowers--skills, be they a broad knowledge base, communication expertise, the ability to make an emotional connection, etc., that enable him or her to overcome great obstacles. A salesperson has an arch-nemesis (not the competitor) in the problem that he or she is trying to save the customer from. Lastly, a salesperson has the ability to defy the odds and think quickly when under pressure to save the world just in nick of time. Salespeople are, or should be, superheros.
1. Allen Majer, "Make People Want to Buy"
Takeaways: The importance of salespeople to the world is greatly underestimated. We often believe that products are created and services introduced because there is demand for them. Actually, products and services are demanded because there are salespeople who create the demand for them. From the railroad to the steamboat to the sowing machine and more, if salespeople weren't around to propogate new ideas, they would never catch.
Quote of the Week: "If sales don't happen, you don't have a business, you've got a hobby." - Geoffrey James
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